


The Uncommon App

by counterheist



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Gen, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-26
Updated: 2011-03-26
Packaged: 2017-11-28 16:50:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/676675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/20026.html?thread=72434746">From the kink meme</a>. Alfred F. Jones would never write the conventional essay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Uncommon App

So you have to be asking yourself, “why’s this dumb jock applying to Harvard”? If the next 1000 words don’t make it clear that the dumb jock should get in, then you’ve gotta promise me one thing. Okay? Crumple up the cheap paper you’ve got this on, ‘cause I know you guys print these things ( _otherwise that’s really awful on your eyes, can you sneak print mine?_ ), and try and see if you can shoot it into the recycling bin from across the room. Make sure it’s recycling, because that stuff’s made out of trees and what did trees ever do to you?

I don’t actually expect you to do all that; although if you did that’d be really awesome. Three points if it makes it in! That’s what my dad always told me. “Three points if you make it, Al.”

I’ve been playing basketball since I was five, ever since dad and I figured out that _bats_ and I don’t get along so well with our neighbor’s windows. So basketball is something I’ve always had to come back to, even after dad left. But you should already know about that from the little questionnaire. ‘Single parent household, not a vet, whiter than sour cream.’ You probably also know about how I stopped playing last year. It’s hard to keep shooting hoops when the district has you under academic suspension and your mom keeps giving you _those_ looks. You have to know the kind. It was the worst when my SATs came back. I know you must be thinking ‘alright, who’d this kid pay to write this all down for him?’ But even though a 310 in Writing must make me look like the biggest idiot since the guy who thought that the moon was made of cheese, I do know how to spell.

The thing is… I get nervous.

I hope that made you chuckle, even though it’s true. Just picture it! Tall, popular, ( _ex_ )captain of the basketball team, and a nervous wreck? Don’t tell mom, but it’s true. Your prompt asked me to talk about myself and what I’d contribute to your learning community. You know, even if you guys already have a thousand overachievers who are secretly basket cases, I bet I’d be the only one who got below a 1000 on the SAT. I bet that’s something Yale doesn’t have ( _and ‘cause I know you guys really like these sorts of plugs: go Crimson!_ ).

And before you start crumpling, or click to the next essay in the queue of 1500 you have to read by Monday, let me remind you that that’s not entirely a bad thing. I played basketball for 12 years, won a bunch of awards, effectively demonstrated my leadership capabilities in high-stress situations ( _does that fill the big word quota on this thing?_ ); I’ve done all that jazz and jazz band too. I also flunked geometry the first time I took it. But you know what?

I’ve had a lot of time to think now that I’m not allowed anywhere near the court. Mom’s given up on me already. She doesn’t care what I do, just gets this sad look on her face that’s even worse than that other _look_ if you can believe it. She doesn’t know I’m applying for college at all, let alone to you guys. My counselor thinks I have Frosty’s chance in the Phlegethon of getting into our nearby community college. The only other person who knows I’m writing to you is my English teacher, and he’s probably going to choke on his Earl Grey after he sees what I’ve written here.

But I won’t change a word. That’s a really important thing about me. If you guys take notes on these things, underline that sentence. I don’t back down on the things I think are important. Yeah, maybe it takes me a while to find them important, but once I do no one can take them away from me. I didn’t fight the decision to take me off the basketball team. Not because I think the guys don't need me anymore _(‘cause they really do, and if I didn’t help them out on Saturdays they’d have lost before they even started this year_ ), but because I don’t think I need the game anymore. And I had to fight tooth and nail to get the district to let me enroll in advanced calculus this fall, even after I showed them all the work I had done over the summer.

I wrote a couple paragraphs up that basketball is something I’ve always had to come back to. But what if I don’t want to be coming _back_ to anything anymore? What if I just want to go forward? …And that’s it: that’s the only other thing you need to underline, because that’s the one thing that should convince you.

Going forward, and succeeding, is the American Dream.

Give me a month; let me show you my grades from this semester once they’re out. Because once you see all those A’s lined up pretty in a row, I think you’ll see where I’m coming from. I might have had a rocky start, but you can’t have Rocky Road without the rocky! Or Rocky and Bullwinkle either. You know, maybe I’ll let Mr. Kirkland glance over this anyway. A strong man knows how to take a little advice now and again, without compromising who he is and what he believes in. And you’d better believe I’m that kind of guy.

My grades aren’t that great yet. And to be honest, I don’t really know what I want to do with my life. Once second space is looking pretty amazing, the next I can’t take my eyes away from the Federalist Papers. I want to try everything. I want to do everything. And I want to do it at the best place possible. You guys say in your publications that you encourage curiosity and lifelong learning?

You’re looking at him.

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn’t get the idea of the actual application essays they’d write out of my head, so I spun off a short thing for nervous America trying to get into Harvard by being gutsy. I never write first person and I haven’t written America in a long time, so this was a strange exercise. Hopefully it still sounds like something he could have thought up. If it doesn't: tell me.
> 
> SAT: a standardized test with 3 sections, each scored from 200-800. Most colleges require this or another test for admission.
> 
> Phlegethon: a river of fire and blood in the seventh circle of hell, from Dante’s Inferno
> 
> Rocky and Bullwinkle: a cartoon about a flying squirrel and a moose. Better than it sounds.
> 
> The Common Application: an online application a lot of colleges, including Harvard, use.
> 
> The actual prompt: _"So I would love to see several AU's where the nations are applying to post-secondary education in their country. I don't know, maybe Alfred nervous about his SAT and trying to get into and Ivy League University? ..."_


End file.
